Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The following perfectly encapsulates the bias of "Man on Fan" Olbermann. While he has avoided reporting the decrease in killings since the Baghdad crackdown commenced, liberal Olby has eagerly trumpeted every piece of bad news he could scrape up.

Nearly two weeks into the newest Baghdad security plan, the daily count of murder victims dumped on the city's streets has declined significantly, a likely sign that Shiite Muslim militia groups aligned with the Iraqi government have reined in their members or sent them out of the capital.

But deaths from bombings and mortar attacks, after an initial decline, have returned to the levels of the previous two months, suggesting that the plan's initial measures have had little impact on the Sunni insurgent groups believed to be responsible for most of that violence.

Maybe Olbermann isn't reporting on the decrease in deaths in Iraq because there hasn't been a decrease?

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Has anyone told you lately that you one pathetic loser? I would be willing to bet you thousands of e-mails like this daily. It is obvious you are ditching the Habeas Corpus story, what I want to know is why were you all over it in the weeks and months before the ruling? Truley cowardess, to say the least. Another thing, the olbermannwatch site won't be closing, you can get that thought out of your mind. If it does close farther down the road, bet your ass I will start another one. P.S. Wasn't it great when the Great Bill O' mispronounced your name last week? That is your new name now, Ulbermahn, it fits your sorry fat ass much better, Osama Bin Ulbermahn. Do you look up and down the street before you get out of your car? You should...............

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

The New York Times ran a correction to their story on blogger access to the Libby trial stating that Bob Cox had only negotiated access for his organization. Someone at Cox's right-wing Media Bloggers Association doesn't seem to have gotten the memo.

For blogs, the Libby trial marks a courthouse coming of age. It is the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials, said Robert A. Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association. Cox negotiated access for the bloggers.

That's funny. It's as if the Times correction never existed.

Maybe the right-wing Media Bloggers Association has the same devotion to truth and accuracy that Bob Cox does?

Monday, February 19, 2007

With the recent announcement that NBC Universal has signed Keith Olbermann to a new multi-million dollar, multi-year contract, the time has come to consider whether Olbermann Watch continues to serve a valuable role as a watchdog site.

One would think that a multi-million dollar, multi-year contract would only increase the need for a "watchdog" site, but OlbermannWatch has never had a particularly close relationship to the demands of impartial logic.

It's clear to me that TND has too much right-of-center baggage to be an effective platform from which to advance the non-partisan agenda of the Media Bloggers Association. I believe I can be a far more effective advocate for the MBA - and establish myself as a thought-leader on blogging and citizen media - by creating an entirely new blog. Maybe folks will see this as somewhat pointless in that I am still the same person and I am still going to have the same opinions. Maybe they're right but I feel that that the time has come to break with my TND-self and start a new chapter in my blogging career. What better way than with a new personal blog with a new more constructive tone; a blog devoted to my work as President of the Media Bloggers Association.

Like the National Debate, OlbermannWatch has become a handicap for Bob's career aspirations.

Bob has a long history of fostering a venomous internet culture based on bullying, intimidation, and irresponsible interpretations of fact. He's attempting to transform that particular brand of poison into a career as an advocate for the blogging community as a whole.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

And I'm curious how Shane's article [in the New York Times] made the mistake of saying Robert Cox of Media Bloggers Association had "negotiated access" for all of the bloggers at the trial. I made very clear in my interview that there were two distrinct groups of bloggers, and I'm certain Jane and Marcy were explicit on that point as well. Did Cox make some sort of sweeping (and misleading) claim of credit late in the process that Shane neglected to double-check with Team FDL? Did a confused copyeditor try to "clarify" a poorly worded sentence? Hopefully, Siun or Jane or someone is hounding Shane for an explanation.

Correction: February 15, 2007 A front-page article on Thursday about bloggers covering the perjury trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. referred imprecisely to the role of Robert A. Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, in securing credentials. Mr. Cox negotiated access for his association, which was the first blogger group to be granted credentials to cover the trial. He did not negotiate on behalf of firedoglake.com and other blogs that received their credentials later.

y purpose in posting as much information as I could find about [name of Cox’s critic] was simply to make the point that she is not as ‘anonymous’ as she thinks and that her behavior may also come with a cost. Just as she made her hate speech about me a part of the ‘permanent’ record of the internet via Google, so to is information about the actual person who wrote all that stuff. My hope is that someday, somehow she will be held accountable for her behavior. In the meantime, that she does not like is reason enough. It's called getting a taste of your own medicine, something [name of Cox’s critic] father knows something about.

Dr. [name of the father of one of Cox’s critics]

BTW, there is no mystery to how I know what I know. My web hosting account comes with some basic web stats software which includes features like displaying where visitors are coming from (so I know what sites/forums have linked to OW) and the IP addresses of visitors/comments (so I can sort by IP address). I can match the IP addresses with what pages were visited including the comment form page; this allows me to do a quick sort and see all the comments coming from one person regardless of what fake name they use. This is how I know when someone is using multiple ‘handles’ to post.”

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

The following is a comment Bob Cox made on OlbermannWatch. Note that it not only provides detailed personal information on the OW critic, but an interesting color commentary. I think it says far more about Bob Cox than it does the critic he is responding to.

[Initial of OW critic] is the sad story of a smart girl with way too much time on her hands and a bit of narcissism disorder. She is originally from Northern California. Her father is a doctor and her sister is also [initial]. She is athletic, an avid soccer player who went to high school near [city] and went to college at [university] where she studied history. She was a very good student at [university] and worked part-time as a "TA" in the history department among other things.

She is 5'3", weighs about 110 pounds and wears a size 4. She was married but is now divorced. She drives up a pick up truck and claims to have worked as a detective once. She describes herself as "not so well endowed--big big big fuckin' brains-- and a lot a balls."

[Initial of OW critic] is your classic "professional" student. She has never held a real job but rather spent her last few years jumping from school to internships and back. She was an intern at the [organization] which allowed her to live at home while working for low pay in [city]. While there she wrote an Op-Ed piece lobbying a professional organization. Last summer she again lived at home while she spent time working for the [organization].

Today she is holed up as a graduate student living off daddy's money at the [university]. She was originally pursuing a Masters in [field] and would have graduated this spring but decided to add a degree in [field] and so has put of her graduation plans off until 2006 (see what I mean about "professional" student). In the meantime, she is looking for a summer internship, possibly entailing a move to the East Coast (I won't say where exactly). She is also considering participating in programs in Central America (possibly Guatamala) and maybe even Cuba. Her dream, of course, would be work with/for Keith Olbermann at MSNBC. My money is on her taking a good look at the real world next year, gulping and opting to for a Ph.D. program, preferably someplace warm.

[Initial of OW critic] currently lives about a block off the main [university] campus in [city] where she is at liberty to stroll to class and her part time job in a school office. I have her exact home and work address, phone numbers and a satellite photo but I am not going to publish any of that here. The last four digits of her home phone are [xxxx]; her work phone is [xxxx].

While at [university], [Initial of OW critic] has been very active in a number of campus organizations ranging from a pro-Kerry group to a poker club. She is not very good at cards but the stakes are small so she can't lose too much.

Today [Initial of OW critic] writes "I'm fairly confident that my want for privacy is perfectly valid, not nefarious in the least, and just plain smart." What she fails to mention is that she has posted to OlbermannWatch.com on a variety other names as well (and apparently, even to this day, still believes that I don't know this).

When you compare [Initial of OW critic] public persona to the online incarnation you can begin to understand her reason for not wanting to be associated with her internet alter ego - a horrendously foul-mouthed, bossy, raving loon. If a potential employer were to run a google search and match up her name with her various psuedonyms like [names] and the many others it might be awkward for her.

…

You see, if you put together the pieces – [state], School, [field] - (and Google is pretty good and putting together such pieces) you will find that there are not that many Universities, in [state], that offer graduate degrees in [field] - and even less than have students named [first name of OW critic].

Sunday, February 4, 2007

“… a few days ago, MBA President Robert Cox had a very interesting detailed blog post describing the strategy used [in the lawsuit against a Maine blogger]:

The real story behind the ‘Maine Blogger’ story is that this blogstorm did not just ‘happen’. I personally spent several weeks developing a media strategy which we launched last Thursday morning. The original goal was to get the story in front of 3-4 mm people by Friday night. We easily surpassed that figure and the number continues to grow.

Once we were ready to drop the story, I reached out to the Members of the Media Bloggers Association with an ‘MBA Legal Alert’ and they responded in force. Hundreds of bloggers responded to the MBA’s request to post this story and make their readership aware of what was happening in Maine. We also sent out a traditional press release to our ‘press list’ and added in about 100 Maine/Travel media outlets – that’s how the Globe got the story. Once the ball was rolling lots of other folks got behind the effort and Lance was a full-fledged bloglebrity.

This kind of blog/MSM media strategy is part of the two-pronged approach we take as part of our Legal Defense Initiative. I think the real story is that this strategy can be – and has been – so effective.

And I agree – it can be, and has been, so effective. But… it’s important to realize just how old-school top-down this is structurally. In fact, scarily so. Work with people who have big megaphones, get them to echo the story, then go up the media pyramid. It’s extremely traditional. Now, the powers here were used for good instead of evil. But, still, what if it were the reverse?"

The extreme right requires a culture war. Doesn’t it sound as if the right-wing MBA were providing that culture war against the mainstream media?

The right-wing Media Bloggers Association did not rely on the U.S. justice system alone to prove the legitimacy of its case. It orchestrated a carefully planned media campaign. Is this professional? Is this elitist as only MBA members have access to these legal and PR resources?

What does it mean for bloggers to be professionalized? What does it mean to have an elite tier of bloggers covering national events?

According to the right-wing Media Bloggers Association, “The big day has finally arrived. We have gotten all the members into the new database and are finally ready to begin the long journey towards putting the Media Bloggers Association on a paying basis.”

To become a credentialed member of the MBA, one must now pay membership dues. This sounds pretty professional.

“The next MBA Board meeting will take place via teleconference at 8:00 PM ET on Wednesday February 21st. Note: We have yet to schedule the work but we will be developing a blog for the MBA Board which will list all the Board members, provide contact information, provide the public agenda for the meeting, a public summary of the board meeting (as is standard practice for boards, we will not publish minutes of the board meetings so that all members feel comfortable speaking freely).”

The MBA has board meetings. This sounds pretty professional. Much like the board meetings of large corporations, the board meetings provide public records – creating a distinction between those who are “in” the group and those who are “out” of the group.

Isn’t this in-group/out-group mentality a characteristic of fascist/authoritarian social systems?

“The MBA has created a unique opportunity for MBA members to participate in a fascinating discussion of the upcoming FRONTLINE special "News War". FRONTLINE is hosting an online forum for media bloggers and other electronic journalism professionals, whom they are asking to weigh in on the themes presented in "News War," the four-part FRONTLINE special coming Feb, 13, 20, & 27, and March 27 to PBS. They are most interested in MBA member bloggers answers to the questions, ‘What are the business models of the future?’ and ‘How will we get news?’”

In addition to having two seats reserved for member bloggers at the Libby trial, the MBA also has access to exclusive events reserved for “electronic journalism professionals.” This sounds pretty professional. PBS is apparently interested in the thoughts of MBA bloggers on business models and how those bloggers will be providing the news. This is not how citizen journalists will provide news, but rather how MBA members will provide the news. Elitist?

Is the right-wing Media Bloggers Association elitist? Is it attempting to professionalize a medium that has grown as a direct result of its egalitarian basis?

"Having already demonstrated what you ... are all about - lying, liberal, loons who all seem to think you might someday be the future Mrs. Olbermann - I don't see any further value in showing you all for the loons you are. You've done that suffeciently [sic.] for yourselves.

If anyone else wants to bother with [the name of a Cox critic] here, she's in New York, she connects to the internet via a cable modem from Cablevision, she has an optonline.net email account and can found most days smoking her hash pipe and starting out the window looking for black helicopters. Drop me a line if you want the details necessary to chase [the name of a Cox critic] down the rabbit hole."

This is abominable behavior. This is online terrorism. This is threatening. This is bullying. This is intimidation.

Cox identifies the location of a person who has commented on OlbermannWatch based on the IP address. He makes a defamatory comment by stating that the individual has a drug problem. He invites OlbermannWatch readers to terrorize the individual by stating he has the requisite information.

More examples from the same online discussion on OlbermannWatch:

"I have been building my career showing up OlbyLoons like you and that is probably not fair - it's like bringing a gun to a knife fight."

Here Cox unambiguously states that he is leveraging the recognition he has gained through OlbermannWatch to promote his "career" - which I assume to mean his career at the Media Bloggers Association.

"If you are going to lie try to cover your tracks a little better or it take the fun out of my favorite sport - showing up Olby Loons for the fools they are."

Cox admits that he thrives on instigating conflict. His "favorite sport" is to insult and belittle those who hold contrary opinions.

Is this the type of person that you would trust to campaign for a code of blogger ethics? Is this the type of person you would trust to be the president of an ostensibly non-partisan organization?

“… we did, I think, get a few good ‘gets.’ David Shuster from MSNBC made a pretty glaring error, put it out live on the air and our guy caught it first. When the judge gave out instructions ruling Valerie Plame’s status at the CIA I think he added some interesting color commentary.”

Out of the hundreds of journalists reporting from the trial, Cox chose to single out an MSNBC employee.

Fox News mouthpiece Bill O’Reilly has repeatedly called NBC “an activist network.” Regular OlbermannWatch contributor Johnny Dollar’s blog is a member of Blogs for Fox and OlbermannWatch founder Bob Cox has consistently voiced his support for the Fox network.

What was Shuster’s grave error?

According to his own statement, Cox’s slam came not for the accuracy of Shuster’s reporting, but from his “color commentary.”

Cox: … This is actuallyhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif the issue they had. They didn’t want to put up a sign saying ‘bloggers welcome’ and then get every knucklehead with a web site showing up at their door, so they were interested in working with our organization at least for two of those seats because we have a large membership of bloggers and we vet those bloggers and we will deliver to the court, you know, people who are particularly qualified to cover this trial.

BBC: What can a blog bring to court coverage that any kind of conventional reporter, dashing out of the court, you know, to file a story or jump on to the camera, can’t?

Cox: Well, one thing that is definitely going to be different about this trial is the immediacy of the coverage… Bringing bloggers into the mix, obviously, brings in a great deal of opinion…

BBC: But isn’t the point about reporting a court case to report the court case? You know, the opinion has to wait until the reporting has been done.

Cox: Well, I guess you haven’t read many blogs then because you don’t have to wait to be into the story to form an opinion.

It's interesting that Cox mentions the incorporation of opinion.

Even though crooksandliars.com is recognized for leaning left of center in its political views, and even though crooksandliars.com is also represented at the Libby trial through the Media Bloggers Association's access, the person representing crooksandliars.com is far from being one of their "traditional" bloggers.

Cox has attacked Crooks and Liars in the past for its left-wing affiliations and jumping on the pro-Olbermann bandwagon, but when discussing the MBA's presence at the Libby trial, it may be productive to examine the bloggers themselves rather than their affiliations.

This is quite consistent with Cox's right-wing, populist views of the role of bloggers vis-a-vis the mainstream media. In Cox's own words: "readers don't trust journalists because they play a 'wink wink' sort of 'inside game' where they don't tell the readers what they know and don't demand that sources 'own' their own words."

In one way or another, the Media Bloggers Association representatives at the Libby trial are an extension of Bob Cox's extreme right-wing views. This is by no means a fair and accurate snapshot of the blogosphere, but rather a representation of Bob Cox's political affiliations.

Two of the nation's most popular political blogs - Daily Kos and the Huffington Post - are absent from the live coverage of the Libby trial. Even though they are not MBA members, wouldn't their presence have assured the vanguard blog coverage the MBA claims to be providing? It most certainly would have, but then again, their presence would also have gone against Cox's personal views.

So, what do I have to offer as a blogger, that isn’t already being offered by other bloggers and by the members of the traditional media? What is my hook, my spin, my unique perspective?

Ummm. Shouldn't you have thought about that before you signed up to cover the Libby trial?

My initial thought is that my interest won’t be the standard legal type stuff that you can get everywhere else. I’m not a lawyer. The closest I’ve ever gotten to a trial has probably been watching Perry Mason as a kid, or waiting in the jury selection room, hoping I wouldn’t get called.

You're there to cover a trial. Why would you not be interested in "the standard legal type stuff?" If you've never been to a trial, why are you there in the first place? Are you close friends with Bob Cox? Do you swallow his particular brand of right-wing insanity?

What is the impalpable essence of the courtroom atmosphere as it relates to our national story that can’t easily be summed up as “Today, Judith Miller testified that...” It has to do with our common story and perhaps a little bit with group dynamics.

So, in other words, your coverage isn't going to include facts that the mainstream media might miss. It's going to include subjective interpretation and using that penetrating analysis of yours to discover the "group dynamics" of the courtroom?

These are the pioneers by which all subsequent blogger coverage of landmark trials is to be judged?

If you're the best and the brightest of the blogosphere, I'll take the mainstream media any day.

Additional evidence that pointing out manipulations, gross inconsistencies, and hypocrisy with Johnny Dollar, Robert Cox, and the rest of the insane asylum that is OlbermannWatch is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Lesson #1: "There are two ways to smear someone. You can be covert: publish facts, but not the whole truth; let careful wording lead readers to the desired conclusion. Or you can be overt: a full-on personal attack, drenched in hyperbole, preferably culminating in high-decibel name-calling."

As our favorite carnival barker spat out his traditional patter, he touched on all the proper spin points: the "escalation" (DNC spin-term for sending in reinforcements, with the added bonus that it has VietNam resonance), lawmakers opposing the surge, The Great Leak Case, Kerry bows out, Hillary, and--glory be!--Cruise News!

The infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann led off with "Mister" Bush and Capitol Hill Republicans: the honeymoon "could be over". Only one Republican supported the anti-surge resolution, and that Republican was rewarded with a lengthy clip. Was he the only one who spoke? Silly rabbit, of course not. All of the rest of the Republicans disagreed with him, but how many of them got clips from Edward R Olbermann? You guessed it: zero. The most biased hour in television news.

Lesson #2: "One of the favorite tricks of propagandists involves cherry-picking. If you recall the old tale of the blind men and the elephant, it's along those same lines. Except that, unlike those blind men, the haters deliberately choose anecdotal snippets to wilfully [sic.] create a false impression."

Inside Cable News alerts us that Geraldo Rivera has had his fill of our hero, Keith Olbermann. Rivera, still smarting over Olby's cackles of delight regarding an incident from three years ago, let loose on "punk" Edward R Olbermann with both barrels:

He called Olbermann a coward -- specifically a "[female part of the anatomy] who wouldn't walk across the street against the red light." He then said he was ready to fight him, saying: "I would make a pizza out of him."

This of course got Olby all a twitter, and he quickly emailed his pal Dan Patrick at ESPN to make sure the subject would come up today. And sure enough, it did. Listen to the mp3 audio:

KO's hot flashes are never-ending sources for amusement, but we note all this here because it is yet another example of Krazy Keith rewriting history to make himself look good.

Johnny Dollar on his blog, Johnny Dollar's Place: "Name-calling and personal attacks: the last resort of all propagandists and smear merchants."

Johnny Dollar on OlbermannWatch: "the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann" ... "Olby cackled his insults and the gullible swallowed them whole. But, as is the case with so many of Keith's assaults on Mr Bill, this too proved to be nothing more than Another Olbermann Lie."

If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it must be a propagandist and smear merchant.

One response to yesterday's round of emails alerting bloggers and the media as to MBA's right-wing bias in its Libby trial coverage:

Thanks for the updates; I wasn’t citing Bob Cox as much as I was the aggregator for the trial’s blogging. If the aggregator is slanted or biased, then I’m truly sorry I cited it.

However, Bob Cox can hate or like whomever he chooses and I sit way to the left of him on the Olberman fence.

You asked: “Are you confident about the absence of a right-wing bias from MBA? Do you believe that the information that you are receiving from them is both fair and accurate?”

In a word, now, no. I’m going to re-read the aggregator and ensure that Firedoglake and other bloggers from the ‘other’ side are included, and if not, de-link the citation because it’s not presenting a “fair and balanced” aggregate. If it is, then it stands for itself.